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Cheese from Italy, Sicilia

Cosacavaddu ibleoCosacavaddu Rausanu

Raw whole cow milk is set in a wooden vat at 34 °C with lamb or kid paste rennet, with no starter added. The curd is drained about 2 hours, scalded about 105 minutes in whey at 80 °C and left to sour until the next day. It is then sliced, stretched in hot water, pressed into a rectangular block, brined about 24 hours and hung in pairs over wooden beams to ripen.

Fully documentedCheese2 daysTraditional food product (PAT, Sicilia)Family: Pasta filata (stretched-curd) cheese family

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sheet gives temperatures and times but no batch size or rennet dose. A block weighs 10–16 kg.
Raw whole cow milkFrom one or two milkings; cows on the pastures of the Hyblaean plateau[pat-sheet]
Lamb and/or kid paste rennet[pat-sheet]
Hot whey (scotta) and hot waterWhey (scotta) scalds the curd; hot whey left from making ricotta, with hot water, stretches it[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt (saturated brine)[pat-sheet]
Olive oilRubbed on the rind during ripening[pat-sheet]
No starterThe milk's own flora and the biofilm on the wooden vat and tools[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Starternone added; natural microflora of the milk and the wooden vat

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: raw whole cow milk, filtered into a wooden vat

Step 1 of 9
Collect the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: raw whole cow milk from one or two milkings.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raw whole cow milk is set in a wooden vat at 34 °C with lamb or kid paste rennet, with no starter added. The curd is drained about 2 hours, scalded about 105 minutes in whey at 80 °C and left to sour until the next day. It is then sliced, stretched in hot water, pressed into a rectangular block, brined about 24 hours and hung in pairs over wooden beams to ripen. Made in 9 steps over 2 days. The longest step, brine, takes 24 h (Regione Siciliana 2018).

Key numbers
Main step24 hReported[pat-sheet]Brine
Temperature34 °CReported[pat-sheet]Set with lamb or kid rennet

What makes this one different

ONAF calls it the same cheese as Ragusano PDO, made without following the PDO specification and kept as a regional traditional product. It is made with wooden tools and no added starter, and the curd is scalded in 80 °C whey before it sours.

Rind
Smooth, thin and compact, golden or straw, darkening with age; rubbed with olive oil
Size
Rectangular block with rounded corners, 10–16 kg
Season
Made all year

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw milk with no added starter. The milk is set at 34 °C; the curd is later cooked in whey at 80 °C for about 105 minutes. The sheet calls the cheese fresh while it is under 2 months old. The Sicilian sheet allows ripening in natural caves and cellars with natural rock walls. ANSES, the French food safety agency, links raw-milk cheese to 34 % of salmonellosis, 37 % of listeriosis and 60 % of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli outbreaks in France over ten years. It advises pregnant women, people with weak immunity, people over 65 and young children not to eat raw-milk cheeses, except pressed cooked cheeses such as Gruyère or Comté.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The Sicilian PAT sheet calls it one of the oldest cheeses of the island and says it has been traded beyond the Kingdom of Sicily since the 14th century. It cites Carmelo Trasselli for an exemption from duties in 1515, Paolo Balsamo (1808) on the quality of the livestock of Modica and of its cheese and ricotta, and Filippo Garofalo (1856) on the fame of the cheeses of Ragusa.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Siciliana, Prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali della Regione Siciliana (2018), D.M. 16 February 2018, sheet 'Cosacavaddu Ibleo (Caciocavallo Ragusano)'gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Cosacavaddu ibleo'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Cosacavaddu ibleo' (id 1217)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov